Adventures on the High Seas with SEAPLEX

In search of……treasure, glorious plastic rubbish that is scientific treasure. Aaarrgh!Seriously though, my BBFF (blogging best friend forever), Miriam G is headed out into the great vastness of the Pacific Ocean and leading her crew aboard the SEAPLEX...

Dissertation Progress....and other things

As you all know, I've been feverishly working on my dissertation - analyzing data, writing manuscripts, and revising as needed according to my lab mates and committee's suggestions. It's been a hectic summer. Each week, I set the goal of completing the...

Urban Wildlife Watch: Marine Mammals

Living in the middle of the United States, I often forget that major coastal cities experience a variety of urban wildlife that seems exotic to me. I am especially thinking of marine life such as dolphins, whales, sharks, sea turtles, seals, crabs, sea...

New exotic material could revolutionize electronics

Announcements of "breakthroughs" like this often don't pan out. This one might be a little more promising. It involves confirmation of a new, fairly simple material – bismuth telluride (Bi2Te3), a compound of bismuth and tellurium – that exhibits what...

Chern numbers of algebraic varieties

Important news of developments in mathematics doesn't come out all that often, but here's some:Chern numbers of algebraic varieties (6/10/09)A problem at the interface of two mathematical areas, topology and algebraic geometry, that was formulated by...

Year of Science - July commemorates Astronomy

image credit: NASAYear of Science (YoS) is a special international outreach program of the scientific community to engage the general public is discussions and hands-on activities. Each month a different scientific topic is highlighted and local YoS...

Wordless Wednesday: Tackling Dissertation Data

This is my life right now. I've printed a ream of paper (no kidding, almost 500 sheets of paper) in the last week with clear end in site. I still have two more dissertation chapters to analyze and wri...

Want to be more creative? Get more REM sleep

REM sleep, a distinctive phase of normal sleep characterized by rapid eye movements, has traditionally been associated with vivid dreaming. New research suggests it is important for creativity in general.Creative problem solving enhanced by REM sleep...

Stellar family in crowded, violent neighbourhood proves to be surprisingly normal

Stellar family in crowded, violent neighbourhood proves to be surprisingly normal (6/4/09)Using ESO’s Very Large Telescope, astronomers have obtained one of the sharpest views ever of the Arches Cluster — an extraordinary dense cluster of young stars...

Wordless Wednesday: Wildlife among us

A lady beetle on a locust tree. A toad along the road -rather, walking path of Forest Park.Juvenile raccoon stuck in a trash can (at Forest Park). The summer nature camp kids discovered it. It was a real treat for them to see such a 'wild animal' in...

Blogging Contests update - I'm in 7th Place!

Wow! Things are shaking up in the Blog Your Way to Antarctica contest! Each day, new people throw their hats in and many of them are terribly interesting folk...and funny, too. I've been keeping my eye on the competition, especially the fast movers -which...

Adventures from Summer Camp

Forest Park Summer Youth Program (a.k.a Summer Nature Camp) has come to an end. I wish it were a little longer. Having more money would be great, plus I got some really great experience in informal science education and outreach. It really was a perfect...

Rapamycin and lifespan extension

Will a pill containing the immunosuppressant drug rapamycin someday extend human lifespan a few years? In spite of the hopeful research announcements that appeared a few days ago, I wouldn't recommend getting one's hopes up just yet.This is a topic I've...

What's right and wrong with science?

Sorry, I missed Wordless Wednesday this week, especially announcing my "comeback". You see, I was in Chicago for the holiday, working on one super-fantastic post - a reflective piece about outdoor education, outreach, and my work experiences with the...

New targeted therapy finds and eliminates deadly leukemia stem cells

Insecure people who are derisive or dismissive of technical scientific terminology (which they affectedly disdain as "jargon") can miss a lot of significant meaning.Consider the medical term "leukemia", which is familiar to the public as referring to...

Intermediate mass black holes

Black holes are controversial. (Just browse reader comments from partisans of various sorts of "alternative" astrophysical theories – which can be found at the end of many articles dealing with black holes that allow commenting by the general public.)Nevertheless,...

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